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Zachariah Silversmith
'Zachariah Silversmith' ''The Spell-Slinger'' Background *Has a mostly average appearance, physically, appearing as a relatively young man, with dark hair and a goatee, but with shadowed eyes, and a scar on the right side of his jaw, leading up to his ear. Has a mostly odd appearance, fashionably, wearing a high-collared suit, a formal embossed tailcoat, and carrying a cane. *Comes from an Old Family of Mages, who's bloodline has been wearing thin, leading to few competent mages in the past century or so. *Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on Dec. 08, 1987, on the road, as his family loved to travel, inspiring his own wanderlust. *Takes odd jobs where he can apply magic, usually paid as a consultant, a volunteer, or Pro Bono by those who know his actual skills. Will also usually respond in the rare circumstances when an Arcane group puts out a public call for help from unaffiliated mages. Excerpt from Bureau records : Zachariah Silversmith, or 'Zach' as he is prone to introducing himself, is an unaffiliated mage who works odd jobs, usually across the continental United States. He is a skinny man of average height, with dark brown eyes, black, short hair, a goatee, and a scar running across his right ear, cutting down towards his chin along his jaw, leaving him with a slightly 'chipped' ear. His fashion is consistently 5 centuries out of date, wearing a full formal tailcoat, embossed along the front, sleeves, and back, over a suit with a high collar, and carrying a silver and black cane, but at particularly formal events he can fit in, merely looking somewhat ostentatious. He is usually hired as a 'psychic' in situations with dimension-adjacent creature encroachment, in which case he will use standard arcane seals and assault to subdue the encroachment, no unusual skills to note there. An unusual aspect of his is that Zachariah does not tend to have the usual mage's adversity to revealing his true nature, though he rarely flaunts it to more than a select couple of individuals at a time. In multiple instances, he came into contact with mundane first responders, and was able to quickly gain control of a situation with a simple display of supernatural protection. In at least one instance, it was noted that his reaction to a threat to aforementioned mundanes was delayed, seemingly in order to show a more heroic front, and earning their trust quickly. This trait of his has had the side effect of him not having a shortage of jobs, as unusual phenomena noted by members of such temporary alliances will often find its way to his ears. In terms of atypical work, a particularly notable event occurred during the 'Zaca' wildfire in Santa Barbra, California. In a clash with the 'Cult of the Crimson Fang' (see report C-03-D37 for details), an altercation with the branch head and Zachariah disrupted the summoning being performed by the group, and led to the creation of a special organism, known as 'Delta', full details of which are classified. Zachariah's skills in spellcraft are fairly high, ranking him as an expert mage. His specialties are ice combat magic, scrying, and, brief stints of superhuman ability. He also has a fairly strong sense of magical disturbances around him, seemingly developed from years of investigation into the supernatural. Due to this, it is recommended that greener Agents are not to be put on an investigative role pertaining to this individual, and should avoid encounters with him or his investigation scenes as much as possible. However, due to above points concerning habits and dress, it is incredibly trivial to track him by mundane means, and tailing/monitoring him is recommended as experience for junior Agents. Two notable exceptions exist to the above, that being an area in which his dress is ordinary by comparison, typically a convention or unusual gathering, into which he can vanish very effectively; and the second being inclement weather, particularly snowstorms. He seems to wear some sort of unknown protective item (watch/amulet?), and isn't particularly bothered by precipitation, making following him in a non-obvious manner in such weather challenging, particularly if he is otherwise alone, recommended for at least 2nd or 3rd ranked ordinary Agents. Agent d-03-2679 Origin : July 23, 2007. : Santa Barbara, California. : Smoke was billowing into the sky, as the forest and underbrush were engulfed in flame. The sound of helicopters and shouted orders as the volunteer and professional fire-fighters echoed throughout the forest, as humanity fought against nature, wresting it back under their control. : I assuredly struck an unusual sight for those with enough free time to notice me today. I don't fit in very well almost anywhere I go, but in the middle of the heat of Summer, in the middle of a Wildfire, my full suit and formal tailcoat clash more than usual, to say nothing of seeing a be-caned man meandering through the woods. I did manage to avoid encountering any significant group of civilians, though I did occasionally see the helicopters flying above me. "*scrch* This is Mal, the coast team has finished a sweep on our end, all clear, over.", the radio I had been given chimed up as I made my way deeper towards the uncontrolled flames. "Dammit", I muttered to myself, feeling my face turning sour. If the coast was clear of a powerful group of spell-drugged maniacs, then the only other possible epicenter of the magical fluctuations was the middle of the wildfire, and given the number of omens that started popping up right before the fluctuations began, I was half expecting Cthulu, so who knows what is going on if that's not it. It isn't usual for a contractor like myself to be working in a group, but the threat here was big, big enough to get the Oratium calling in assistance from unaffiliated practitioners who happened to be in the area. : As I started to enter actually burning areas of the forest my coat started to glow with a silvery light, looking like little flames surrounding me, warding off the heat. I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable when I noticed something odd, an unnatural stillness in the air around me. Frowning, I looked around the area, before noticing a seemingly-inconspicuous sapling, burned like the trees around it, but with some additional, strange markings on it. "White Matriarch, cleanse all vile and impure" I chanted, pointing at and shattering the plant. All at once, I felt a massive wave of energy flow from very nearby. I immediately reported on the radio, "This is Zach, I found them in zone 3, they had a ward encirclement around their perimeter, it's broken, over." After a moment the response came through: "Acknowledged, all mages are to converge on zone 3, everyone engage immediately, stop them if you can, or delay long enough for the sealers to arrive, over." "So much for 'Great job, wait for reinforcements, then engage.'" I grumbled to myself as I drew my sword from my cane, ready for combat. At that moment, I noticed the sun seeming to grow dim. As I looked up into the sky, all I saw was a blood-red perfect circle, barely visible through the smoke. You don't always have to be a certified oracle to know what is and is not an omen, and a blood sun is never a good sign. : As I started running towards the center of the power fluctuations, I heard a shout: "It's over here!" as a burly man with odd abrasions on his skin charged through the flames towards me. "Knight of Inglacia, grasp my enemy, for it offends us." I shouted, as a ghostly orb of frozen mist whistled through the air, coating the man with a layer of ice, and rooting him to the spot. I gave him a sadistic grin as I ran around him, stealth no longer being an option. Serves him right, people who sacrifice their magic to mutate their own forms have it coming when they lose to an experienced mage. Choosing muscles over power, tsk! Breaking out of my internal grumbling, I rush into a relatively clear glade to be greeted by the sight of a dozen different cultists with their arms impaled into trees behind them, maniac grins on their faces, as they burned, adding to the smoke. Normally, I'd appreciate my problems solving themselves, but they were unfortunately the source of most of the magic in the area. In the center of the glade, there was a woman in what looked somewhat like a snakeskin dress, but snakes are never that red, and don't have that many spikes coming off of them. She was standing in the middle of a triangular summoning formation, and she had her head bowed as she chanted. : Noticing a few more goons looping around behind me, a wall of ice jutted out of the ground just behind me as I shouted "Winter's veil, interpose with our enemies, for they are not worthy to gaze upon our visage." That should hold them for a while. I don't have much time if the omens are as obvious as literal signs in the sky, so I charged for the summoner. She saw me coming as I was about half way to her, and she flashed me a toothy grimace. I noticed that one of her canines had a ruby embedded into it, must be some kind of leader mark. As I thought that, she opened her mouth, and I saw the ruby glow momentarily, before a gout of fire was sweeping in the area I was in. Guess it wasn't just a leader mark, then. I rolled to the ground, face down, to keep my coat towards the flames. That managed to ward off the worst of it, though I was still somewhat singed when I manged to roll to my feet. The summoner seemed surprised that I was alive, and I managed to launch an ice knife to throw her off before she could incinerate me for real this time. In that time I managed to get up to her, and bring my sword to bear. I saw her left hand coming towards my face and noted it changing into a crooked claw as it approached, too late for me to block. I backed up a bit, and the claw mostly glanced off my coat, but I was cut near my collar, and my suit was ruined as I got blood all over it. At least I won't almost be losing an ear again, though. I managed to cut her other claw, which was coming to gouge my eyes out, and then muttered a completion incantation for a jumping spell I had prepared earlier as I kicked forward with my right foot, knocking her halfway across the glade. Who says a spell should only have one use? I dashed after her, and put my sword to her neck. "My ritual circle!", she cried out, looking desperately towards the glowing formation, barely held back by sword-point. "Don't you know anything?" I asked. "It's only called a ritual circle if it's round, or a pentagram, in the triangular shape, it's called a summoning..." as I spoke, I turned my head, noticing in a moment that the formation was glowing a hideous red, and I could faintly see blood we had both spilled merging, then a flash of bright light. "...Delta." I finished. : : : July 24, 2007. : : I doodled around a bit with the stylus on my phone, drawing a small circle, adding some runes, and then felt the characteristic shift in my mind of magic triggering, creating a small flame, as I lit my pipe. "This thing's amazing, John, thanks for the bonus!" I said to a seriously disgruntled man in a suit. "You're ruining my immersion, Zach." he said, still with an unpleasant look on his face. I rolled my eyes at him. "What, it's not like I could do anything much more than that, there isn't much space for details, it'll never be able to do more than a basic party trick." I told him back. "Seriously, matches are not hard, I have them in the drawer over here." he said, opening aforementioned drawer and waving a box of matches at me for emphasis. "Yeah" I responded with a smile, "but matches aren't fun. Seriously, if you could do magic, why wouldn't you use it at every possible opportunity?" "Eh, fair, but it still feels like it's ruining the atmosphere." said John. I sighed, "I kind of know the feeling, actually, got the idea from my brother, who does computers, makes me wonder who the real wizard in the family is. My niece is barely born, and he's already talking about making a phone able to draw magic circles for her to learn on. He doesn't have a drop of magic in him, but our parents made sure he knew the theory, she'll have a heck of a learning edge if it works." I briefly thought back to that argument I intermediated between my brother and Elaine, eventually we settled that he would avoid damaging magic mixed with tech, and would not, under any circumstances, make anything enabling even small lightning magic on expensive technology. I, however, am not under any such limitations, and I'm sure that small warping on the brand-new screen has nothing to do with the tiny flame circle I just activated. ... Family and Relations *Delta (*blood* relative) *Ulminir Silversmith (father) *Judith Silversmith (mother) *Malachi Silversmith (brother) *Elaine Aronis (sister-in-law) *Judith Aronis (niece)